What better way can there be for Pakistan to prove its moderate credentials by moving towards establishing some kind of ties with Israel?

Hasan Askari Rizvi, defence scholar

Dr Rizvi points to two immediate benefits that Pakistan may be seeking from its change of policy.

"The first has to do with image," he says.

"What better way can there be for Pakistan to prove its moderate credentials by moving towards establishing some kind of ties with Israel?" he asks.

The second and far more important reason, he says, relates to the country's defence policy and weapons requirements.

Pakistan has historically relied on US weaponry for its security needs, ignoring calls from independent experts, to diversify its weapons base.

Dr Rizvi says at the moment any Pakistani requests for fresh weapons systems from the US are fiercely resisted by Indian and Israeli lobbyists.

By moving towards a formal recognition of Israel, Pakistan can thus gain entry into an elite club - currently comprising US, India and Israel - with common security perceptions vis-a-vis the Middle East and South Asia.

'Illusion of change'

Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan scholar at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, inserts an important proviso into this argument.

"What remains to be seen is whether the move is aimed only at garnering further US support or is it actually based on a desire for genuine change," says Mr Haqqani.

He says President Musharraf is known for "creating an illusion of change" without actually working towards it.

Some in Pakistan say September 11 attacks were a Jewish conspiracy

Mr Haqqani feels that anti-Semitism is so deeply rooted in Pakistani society that it would take more than a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries to neutralise it.

In an interview with the LA Times published on 18 August, Pakistan's education minister called Jews "the worst terrorists in the world" while summing up the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Pakistani passport holders still cannot travel to Israel.

And there is no shortage in Pakistan of those who believe that the 11 September attacks on the US were a Jewish conspiracy, as were the London bombings, to discredit Muslims.

Pakistan's top religious leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed has already described the Istanbul initiative as a move "against everything that Pakistan has so far stood for".

Unofficial contacts

It is perhaps this deep rooted suspicion between orthodox Jews and Muslims - a suspicion fuelled by events dating back to the times of the Muslim prophet Mohammed - that has led the Musharraf government to go one step at a time.

Defence analyst AR Siddiqui - who once headed the Pakistani army's public relations department - says that within the military top brass, a recognition of the need to improve ties with Israel has been gaining momentum over the last few years.

Indirect relations between Pakistan's military establishment and Israel dating back to the 1980s are already a documented fact.

But over the last couple of years, President Musharraf has repeatedly attempted to bring these contacts into the public sphere.

In 2003, he stressed the need for better relations with Israel during his visit to Camp David. But his comments were quickly brushed under the carpet when they drew an adverse reaction at home.